"Lone wolf" Albon disappointed with Belgium GP qualifying

Alex Albon confessed to being disappointed with a season-best fifth in qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix and described himself as a "lone-wolf" in his final effort.

Red Bull driver Albon's fastest lap was 0.496secs slower than team-mate Max Verstappen with the Dutchman qualifying third, two places ahead of Albon, who equalled his result from the Austrian season opener.

Daniel Ricciardo splits the two drivers in fourth.

In Q2, the Thai-British driver had benefited from a tow supplied by Verstappen, but this was not replicated in Q3 and Albon recorded a slower time as a result.

Describing his session as "okay", Albon told Sky Sports F1: "It took a little time to get into it.

"Once we were hooked up, actually Q2 was my best lap. A little bit disappointed in Q3. Just little bits but obviously [I was] a little bit of a lone wolf in the second run so it was a little bit harder but I'm happy.

"Coming from FP1, the car has felt nice straight away and it hasn't been changing too much. We were just chipping away at it and it was a positive day."

While Verstappen was able to make the medium compound tyre work in Q2, Albon struggled to unlock the pace from the harder rubber and had to switch to the soft compound.

"I didn't really have the pace on the mediums to qualify through like that," he admitted.

"Maybe we did actually, looking back at it. We are going to start on the softs. The starts are obviously important here. It is a short run but it is important to be clean and get through it and then after that, we will see. The deg is quite high here so it is not going to be easy."

Team principal Christian Horner told Sky Sports F1 the team has worked hard to "settle the car down" for Albon following a difficult start to the season.

"I think that Alex has driven well this weekend," he said.

"He has found the car more to his liking here. We have done a lot of work since Barcelona and here to try and settle the car down for him, particularly on low fuel. I think the fact that it is the second time, it is a venue with our configuration of car, he knows what more to expect.

"I think we have managed to improve the car a little for him. It is good to see. We know he has got the potential, we know he races incredibly well so hopefully starting nearer the front, he can put in a good performance tomorrow."

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